----- Original Message -----
Subject: [TMIC] How to call the cops ... short, funny, and "true"
One of the Policemen said to George: "I thought you said that you'd
shot them!"
George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"
(True Story) I LOVE IT - Don't mess with old people!!
While on its face the story may SOUND humorous, in the real world it's
not really so funny at all. Emergency Service (police, fire,
paramedics) dispatchers must prioritize their calls according to the
severity of the incident and available resources. If you have 5 calls
waiting and only 1 police car or ambulance available to
dispatch - not at all an uncommon scenario - you obviously have to send
someone to the most urgent calls first. While the thieves in "Mr
Phillips" shed would rate a fairly high priority, other stuff like REAL
shootings would of necessity come first. While officers were diverted
to his fake call, someone in a genuine life-or-death situation could
have been denied service that they needed immediately.
Two cases in point:
In San Francisco (see http://www.nbc11.com/news/3645044/detail.html ) a
woman was suffering from severe bleeding following some surgery. 9-1-1
was called. A neighbor, apparently figuring (like the legendary Mr
Phillips) that "they'll get here quicker if I tell them she's been
shot," called in with THAT lie, which may have cost the woman her life.
Reason was, on a "bleeder" call the paramedics will go into the scene
immediately to render aid. On a "shooting" call however, it's standard
safety procedure for the medics hold back and wait for the police to
check the scene first, for everyone's safety. If the shooter is still
there, they could end up with a couple dead paramedics, who can't be of
much help. This false report of a shooting thus delayed their arrival
at
the woman's side by about four minutes, in which time she bled to death.
Years ago, when I was a police dispatcher, a man once phoned in that "an
officer's been shot" at an address. A number of police cars responded
quickly, of course. On the way, there was an accident when
several citizens' cars crashed into each other while pulling out of the
way of the police car with its siren on. One person was seriously
injured. Those officers had to stop and render aid at the accident, and
other officers went on to the call.
As the policemen were searching for a police car or for someone shot in
the area, I checked through my pending calls and saw that we had
received a low-priority "cold" theft report from the same guy about 30
minutes earlier, but hadn't dispatched anyone yet. I relayed that
information to the supervisor on the scene. The impatient petty-theft
victim got his theft report taken, after which he was
arrested for felony "filing a false report of an emergency resulting
in great bodily injury." For that he made himself eligible for
imprisonment in the state prison and/or a $10,000 fine. But worst of
all, he then had the knowledge - if he even cared - that he had caused
an innocent person to be badly injured because of his stupidity
Cops, paramedics, and firefighters have enough genuine life-and-death
calls as it is, without having to respond to phony or exaggerated calls.
What if EVERY caller were to give such false (or exaggerated)
information? The dispatchers would have no way of knowing who was truly
in desperate need of immediate life-or-death help.
Don't mean to be overly dramatic about it, but whenever that old story
gets to my inbox it riles me up, since I've been on both ends of the
9-1-1 line.
Harry
